Prodi Faces Test Over Extradition of 26 Cia Agents

Italy's prime minister, Romano Prodi, was facing a political dilemma yesterday after it emerged that prosecutors had asked his government to demand the extradition of 26 CIA agents from the US so they can be put on trial for kidnapping a terrorist suspect.

Judicial sources said the wanted men and women included a former head of the CIA in Italy, named as Jeff Castelli. The extradition request was sent to Rome by prosecutors in Milan investigating the disappearance three years ago of an Islamist cleric, Hassan Mustafa Osama Nasr, known as Abu Omar.

Mr Prodi's justice minister can choose, in the interest of relations with the US, not to forward the request to Washington. This was the course taken by his predecessor in the rightwing government of Silvio Berlusconi, who was presented with an application for the extradition of 22 of the suspects earlier this year.

But a decision to shelve the application would outrage many members and supporters of the present centre-left government, which has a wafer-thin majority. Pressing the case has the attraction of putting Mr Berlusconi under pressure.

Yesterday new evidence surfaced indicating that the abduction of Abu Omar had been authorised at a high level while Mr Berlusconi was in office, and there is growing support for the view that it was a joint US-Italian intelligence operation.

Abu Omar, who was suspected of recruiting Islamist terrorists, disappeared from Milan in 2003. Prosecutors investigating another case came across evidence he had been seized by Americans and taken to Egypt, where he was tortured.

Their inquiry has turned into the most thorough yet into extraordinary rendition. Mr Berlusconi and the head of military intelligence, General Nicolo Pollari, have both denied they knew of the operation.

But prosecutors have unearthed evidence to suggest Gen Pollari's service, Sismi, laid the ground for the abduction and may have taken part. This month they ordered the arrest and imprisonment of Sismi's counter-espionage chief, Marco Mancini. He was released last Saturday.